Description
The Miramare Castle Park is the garden that Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg created around his castle, on the Grignano promontory, a few kilometres north of Trieste: 22 hectares of exotic trees, avenues and ponds high above the gulf.
When work began, in spring 1856, the promontory was a bare Karst rock with a few thorny bushes. Maximilian, a keen botanist, turned it into his garden of wonders. He did not forget it even in Mexico, from where he kept sending plants.
The park is in the English style: winding paths, streams, lawns and trees arranged as in nature, following the roughness of the ground. The layout is by the Austrian architect Carl Junker, who also designed the castle; for the plants the archduke called first on Josef Laube, then on the Bohemian Anton Jelinek.
The stars include the trees from far away: cedars of Lebanon, North Africa and the Himalayas, firs from Spain, cypresses from California and Mexico, pines from Asia and America, a giant sequoia and the ginkgo. Maximilian chose many of the plants himself on his voyages as an admiral.
Among the greenery you come across the Castelletto, where the couple lived while the castle was being built, the greenhouses and the ruins of the chapel of San Canciano. In the apse there is a cross made from the wood of the frigate Novara, Maximilian's ship.
Next to the swan pond stands the Swiss House, now a café.
Miramare began as a private garden: it has no monumental entrance and no avenue leading straight to the castle. Maximilian, though, opened it to ordinary people a couple of days a week.
Its story also has a sad side. In 1864 Maximilian left from here to become Emperor of Mexico, where he was executed by firing squad three years later. His wife Charlotte, back at Miramare, showed signs of mental illness and was kept shut away in the Castelletto.
After the Second World War the estate was the headquarters of the Allied troops until 1954. The following year the park reopened to the public.
When work began, in spring 1856, the promontory was a bare Karst rock with a few thorny bushes. Maximilian, a keen botanist, turned it into his garden of wonders. He did not forget it even in Mexico, from where he kept sending plants.
The park is in the English style: winding paths, streams, lawns and trees arranged as in nature, following the roughness of the ground. The layout is by the Austrian architect Carl Junker, who also designed the castle; for the plants the archduke called first on Josef Laube, then on the Bohemian Anton Jelinek.
The stars include the trees from far away: cedars of Lebanon, North Africa and the Himalayas, firs from Spain, cypresses from California and Mexico, pines from Asia and America, a giant sequoia and the ginkgo. Maximilian chose many of the plants himself on his voyages as an admiral.
Among the greenery you come across the Castelletto, where the couple lived while the castle was being built, the greenhouses and the ruins of the chapel of San Canciano. In the apse there is a cross made from the wood of the frigate Novara, Maximilian's ship.
Next to the swan pond stands the Swiss House, now a café.
Miramare began as a private garden: it has no monumental entrance and no avenue leading straight to the castle. Maximilian, though, opened it to ordinary people a couple of days a week.
Its story also has a sad side. In 1864 Maximilian left from here to become Emperor of Mexico, where he was executed by firing squad three years later. His wife Charlotte, back at Miramare, showed signs of mental illness and was kept shut away in the Castelletto.
After the Second World War the estate was the headquarters of the Allied troops until 1954. The following year the park reopened to the public.